Mars Orbiter Mission is not the end but a beginning. There can be a MOM 2 either in 2018 or 2020, Indian Space Research Organisation chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan said.

Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is not the end but a beginning. There can be a MOM 2 either in 2018 or 2020, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan said.

“We have shown our ability to put a spacecraft around the Red Planet. When it will happen is still not clear but launch of MOM 2 will certainly not be in 2016. It can be possible either in 2018 or 2020. But this will be explored after the scientific community comes up with the requirements,” Radhakrishnan said.

Besides Chandrayaan 2, other main projects, he said, included the revised Aditya mission to study the sun. “The spacecraft will have some more instruments. We are looking at an appropriate moment for the launch that has a connection with the solar cycle,” he said at the launch of a book—Reaching for the stars: India’s journey to Mars and beyond by Pallava Bagla and Subhadra Menon.

Asked if Isro was at any stage of the nearly 15 month journey, doubtful of the end result of MOM, he replied, “We had logistic and technology hurdles but team Isro never says no. Our job has always been to make impossible things possible.”